Aquos Dhaen
by guilherme3301
Summary: Rhaegar Targaryen defeated Robert Baratheon in the Trident and changed the course of history. In a land where summer can last for decades and winter a lifetime, problems are just beginning. The dragons returned to the world, and with it the Targaryen dynasty more and more solid. In the far east, a mysterious man is considered the reincarnation of the hero who once saved the world.


Bran

In the courtyard below, it seemed to be colder by the day. Bran Stark watched, sitting on his bed in front of the window.

Winterfell is a huge castle complex spanning several acres and protected by two massive walls. There is a village outside, the winter town. Winterfell has been built around an ancient godswood and over natural hot springs. The water is piped through walls and chambers to heat them, making Winterfell more comfortable than other castles during the harsh northern winters.

Inside the walls, the complex is composed of dozens of courtyards and small open spaces. Weapons training and practice take place in those yards. The inner ward is a second, much older open space in the castle where archery practice takes place. It is located next to the broken tower. Inside Winterfell stands the inner castle, which contains the Great Keep and the Great Hall.

He wanted to be down there, laughing and running. His legs would not let him, for he had become a cripple. Angrily at that thought, he rubbed his tears. He was already ten years old. He was now almost a man made, too old to cry.

"I see that sleep has not yet come to you," said the Old Nan of the chair where she knitted.

Bran turned his gaze from the window to her. She was a very ugly old woman, Bran thought grudgingly; shrunken and wrinkled, almost blind, too weak to climb stairs, with no more than a few strands of white hair to cover a pink and scaly scalp. No one knew how old she was, but her father said they'd already called her Old Nan when he was still a boy himself.

Surely she was the oldest person in Winterfell, and perhaps the Seven Kingdoms. She had come to the castle as a Brandon Stark's wet-nurse whose mother had died giving birth to her, perhaps Lord Rickard's older brother, Bran's grandfather, or younger brother, or a brother's father of Lord Rickard. Sometimes the Old Nan told the story in one way, sometimes in another. But in all the little boy he died at the age of three of a summer cold, but the Old Nan remained at Winterfell with his own children. She had lost both boys in the war in which Robert's Rebellion failed before Rhaegar Targaryen's dragon. The daughters had long since been married, gone away to live and died. All that remained of his blood was Walder, known to all as Hodor, the simple-minded giant who worked in the stables, but the Old Nan lived and continued to live, with its needles and stories.

Bran knew things would never go back to the way they used to. All of his family left him alone in Winterfell. Everyone, the father, the mother, Robb, the sisters and even little Rickon. His father said there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, and Bran was left there for this duty. All went to the Aegon's Festival at King's Landing to commemorate the three hundred years of the Aegon's Conquest. Everyone from every corner of the Seven Kingdoms was going to the capital. And the cripple stayed.

"Tell me a scary story," Bran said. "My favorites are the scary ones." He heard a flutter from outside and turned to the window. There was nothing there, only the shadow of the sentinels passing through the torches.

"Ah, my dear summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "What do you know about fear? Fear belongs to winter, my little lord, when the snow accumulates ten feet deep and the icy wind howls from the north. Fear belongs to the long night, when the sun hides the face for years and children are born, live and die forever in darkness, while direwolves become thin and hungry, and white walkers move through the woods."

"You're talking about the Others," Bran said, as if regretting.

"The Others," agreed the Old Nan. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, there fell a winter that was colder, harder, and infinite than any in the memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and both the kings trembled and died in their castles like the farmers in their huts. The women preferred to suffocate their children to see them go hungry, and they wept, and they felt the tears freeze on her face." The voice and the needles were silent, she looked at Bran with her clear, veiled eyes and asked, "Then child? Is this the kind of story you like?"

"Well..." Bran said reluctantly. "I think so."

"In that darkness the Others came for the first time." The old woman began, as the needles clicked. "It was cold, dead things that hated the iron, the fire, the touch of the sun, and all the hot-blooded creatures in the veins. They razed castles, cities and kingdoms, knocked down kings and armies in the hundreds, mounted on giant spiders and leading zombie hosts. Not all the men's swords combined managed to stop their advance, and they found no mercy in women and newborn babies. They chased women through frozen forests and fed their dead servants with the flesh of children."

Old Nan's voice had become very low, almost a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to hear.

"These were the days before the arrival of the Andals, and long before the women fled from the cities of Roine through the narrow sea, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the Children of the Forest. But here and there, in the thickest woods, the children still lived in their wooden towns and hollow hills, and the faces of the trees kept vigil. And so, as the cold and death filled the land, the last hero decided to look for the Children of the Forest, hoping that his old magic could regain what the armies of the men had lost. He left for the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. He searched for years, until he lost hope of ever finding the Children of the Forest in their secret cities. One by one the friends died, and so did the horse, and finally the dog, and his sword frozen so hard that the blade broke when he tried to use it. And the Others sniffed at him the hot blood and followed the trail in silence, chasing him with his giant spiders..."

Suddenly the door opened, and Bran's heart leaped to his mouth in sudden fear, but it was only Maester Luwin.

"What are you doing awake at this hour, my lord?"

"I'm listening to the stories of the Old Nan."

"It's too late," said Maester Luwin. "It's time to sleep."

"I want to hear the end of the story," Bran muttered.

"Orders from Lady Catelyn," Luwin said. "Go and rest, Old Nan."

Bran was Lord of Winterfell at that moment. You could do whatever you want. But he did not want to have a fight with the maester. Then he frowned and fell silent.

Old Nan slowly left her room. The maester approached.

"You cannot leave her here all the time, sitting in that chair. She's no older for that."

"I like her stories."

Maester Luwin settled Bran on his bed and covered him with fur. He extinguished the candles and said, "I'm sorry, Bran. I must watch over you while your parents are not here.

"I miss them," Bran said. "When are they coming back?"

"I hear the festival has seven days. But the distance between Winterfell and King's Landing is quite large. Be patient."

Before the maester left, Bran said, "about her stories... That's all I have left. All I have to entertain. I wanted to be with my family and see the dragons, but that dream is gone, because I'm a cripple."

"Do not say the word crippled. You've lost your leg movements... you have a long life ahead of you."

"I'd rather be dead," Bran said, in the darkness that had taken his room.

The maester briefly touched Bran's head. "I'm sorry, Bran. I hope this feeling goes away."

Maester Luwin closed the door to the room and left Bran in the darkness. It took good minutes to finally close his eyes and sleep.

It was as if it had been falling for years.

"Fly," a voice whispered in the darkness, but Bran could not fly, so all he could do was fall.

"But I never fall," Bran said, already falling.

"You've fallen once," said the voice. "That's how you lost your legs."

The ground was so far away he could barely make out the gray haze swirling around him, but he could feel it falling very fast, and he knew what was waiting for him down below. Even in dreams, it is not possible to fall forever. I knew I'd wake up at some point.

"I'm dreaming?"

The ground was now closer, still distant, a thousand miles away, but closer than it had been. There, in the darkness, it was cold. There was no sun, no stars, only the ground below, which came up to crush him, and the gray mists, and the voice whispered. He wanted to cry.

"Do not cry. Fly."

The voice was serious and echoed a little in Bran's mind.

"I cannot fly," Bran said. "I cannot, I cannot... I've fallen from the broken tower two years ago."

Bran looked around to see where the voice came from.

"What is your name?"

"Bran... Brandon Stark. And yours?"

"It took me a long time to find him, Brandon Stark. They call me Celarus. Come on, fly."

"So help me."

"Actually, I'm helping," Celarus said.

"This is just a dream."

"It will be?"

"If I fall, I'll wake up from the dream," Bran replied.

"If you fall, you die."

Bran looked down. I could now distinguish mountains, with white peaks of snow, and the silvery ribbons of rivers in dark woods. He closed her eyes and began to cry, thinking the moment he fell from the broken tower, slipping from those stones wet from the rainy day.

"That's no use," Celarus said. "Leave those memories behind. I told you, the answer is to fly, not to cry."

"I have no wings," Bran said.

"Maybe you have them."

Bran fumbled for wings and found nothing.

"There are different kinds of wings," Celarus said.

Bran was looking at his arms and legs. It was so thin, just skin, all stretched over bones.

"I'm just a broken kid."

"No... you have the gift. And I finally found you."

Bran was falling faster than ever. Gray mists howled around him as he plunged into the earth below.

"What do you want with me?" Bran asked.

"I'm teaching you how to fly."

"I CAN NOT FLY!" Bran shouted.

"You're flying right now."

"I'm falling."

"All flights start with a fall," Celarus said. "Look down."

"I'm afraid…"

"LOOK DOWN!"

He looked down and felt the entrails turn into water. The ground was now running toward him. The whole world spread beneath him, a tapestry of whites, browns, and greens. He saw everything so clearly that for a moment he forgot to be afraid. He could see the whole kingdom and all the people in it.

He saw Winterfell as the eagles saw him, the great towers that looked low and squat seen from above, the castle walls transformed into simple lines drawn on the earth. He saw Maester Luwin on his porch, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he took notes in a book. He saw Hodor, the simple-minded giant of the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikken's forge, carrying it to his shoulder as easily as another man would carry a bundle of straw. In the heart of the godswood, the great weirwood tree hovered over its reflection in the black lagoon, its leaves slamming in a chill wind.

"Was not it at night?" Bran asked confused.

"Brandon Stark has the gift," Celarus said. "You can see what you want. When you want."

He looked south and saw the great blue-green chain of the Trident. He saw his father and brother Robb leading a column down the kingsroad. In the carriage he saw Sansa excited, and Rickon wept until he fell asleep. He saw Arya always with his thoughts in the lessons of the master swordsman braavosi. There were people all over the road and all going in the same direction.

He looked at the capital of the Seven Kingdoms and saw two dragons circling the Red Keep. One was white and the other was black.

"Are they the dragons? Really?"

"The truth is in what you see."

Bran was thrilled to see that. Always wanted to see the dragons.

"Maester Luwin said that the white dragon belongs to King Joffrey, and the black dragon belongs to Princess Daenerys."

"Dragons," said Celarus. "Beautiful and rare creatures."

Looked up and saw clearly beyond the narrow sea, saw the Free Cities, the dothraki green sea, and further on to Vaes Dothrak, at the foot of his mountain, to the fabulous lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai, where magic stirs at sunrise. Saw a mysterious man, all in white, with a white mask and a conical hat. Hundreds of people around him boasted it as if it were god himself.

Finally looked north. He saw the Wall shine like a crystal, and the black brothers training in the courtyard, shouting and running. Saw one of the builders hide his secrets in his heart. And he looked Beyond the Wall, and saw his uncle Benjen sleeping alone on a tree, his skin turning white and hard as the memory of all the heat was escaping him. Looked beyond endless forests under a blanket of snow, beyond the icy coast and the great whitish blue rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. Looked north, and north, and north, at the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. Looked into the depths of the heart of winter, and then cried out in fear, and the heat of tears burned his face.

"Now you know," Celarus whispered. "Now you know why you should live."

"Because?" Bran asked, not understanding, and falling.

Now there was nothing beneath him besides snow, cold and death, an icy emptiness where jagged needles of whitish blue ice waited to embrace him. They flew toward him like spears. Saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled at their tips. Felt a desperate fear.

"As your father always says. Winter is coming. It's time for you to awaken your gift."

"Can a man continue to be brave if he is afraid?" Heard another voice say, a distant voice.

And his father's voice answered him. "That's the only way for a man to be brave."

"You choose Brandon Stark," Celarus said. "Fly or die."

Death held out his hands to him, shouting. Bran spread his arms and flew.

Invisible wings drank the wind and filled, and shoved him up. The terrible needles of ice drifted down. The sky opened up there. Bran hovered. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything else. The world shrank beneath him.

"I'm flying!" Bran said, delighted.

"I see."

"How do I do this, Celarus?"

"You are special."

Bran spent a lot of time flying and never wanted to wake up from that dream. It was magical, wonderful. The best thing that had happened to him since he fell from that broken tower. Celarus went back to Bran.

"About the story you heard from the old woman... The truth is more complex than you realize."

"What story?" Bran asked. "The story of the Long Night?"

"The story of the Long Night is totally different. Maybe I'll tell you one day."

"Tell me. I want to know."

"It's not the moment. What you should know now is to awaken your gift."

And then he saw a bright spot on the horizon. The window was open and he felt a warmth wrap around him like a hot bath.

Bran understood that it was his room. Opened his eyes calmly. The day had been born, and his dream ended.


End file.
